THE LAST NIGHT
I am lying in bed, and counting a hundred slowly. It must be close on
midnight now, and I am still unable to get to sleep.
The room resounds to the noise of snoring. They are lying to the right
and left of me, and if I turn over on my back, I am staring up at the
wooden planking of a bed. For the cots extend all along the wall from
door to window, one above the other, and in every cot a soldier is lying
asleep.
Now and again one or other tosses about, and rolls heavily over to the
other side.
Further away, near the window, some one is mumbling in his sleep.
Suddenly he shouts out aloud: "And that wasn't me. I ain't touched a bit
of the wire. D'you take me for a thief?"
It sounds exactly as if he were wide-awake. I am on the point of
speaking to him. Then all is silence again, and I lie listening
intently for what is going to happen next. But he keeps quiet, and goes
on dreaming. He is still in the midst of his workshop; yet tomorrow he
is going to be carted out to war.
And nothing but sleeping and snoring men all round me.
Wonder if any one else in barracks is lying wide-eyed and staring into
the future?
My thoughts flit homeward. Wonder whether she slept well to-night?
Wonder if she has chanced to be thinking of me? Wonder how the little
chap is getting on? His teeth were giving him trouble.... It is not good
to marry so young; the unmarried men who are called out now are better
off. Wonder whether the war will last long? We have put by a little
nest-egg. But what's the good of that in these times of famine prices?
The allowance for wife and children is so small that it won't even cover
rent. Where's she to turn for money when the post-office savings book
is finished? She will have to go out sewing. But what's to happen when
hundreds of thousands of others have to go out sewing too? Well, then
she will have to start a little business, open a greengrocer's shop. But
what's to happen when hundreds of thousands of others have to start a
shop?
The State is taking charge of your wives and children, that's what it
said in the regimental orders yesterday. Well, there is no use in
imagining the very worst at the start. The war may be over quickly.
Perhaps it will never get as far as big battles. Perhaps they will think
better of it, and give way yet.
And then my mind feels at ease again. In spirit I see myself back again
at my office-desk and writing invoices. A glance at the clock--it's
close on the hour--only a few more strokes of the pen. So let's finish
up quickly. Let's hang up our office coat on the nail and slip into
another. And then get out into the street, for Dora must be waiting
supper.
By this time we have already reached the bridge by the Town Hall, with
the two big triple lamps.... Who is standing there by the railing of the
bridge, and gazing down into the canal so motionlessly? It's a woman.
She must have run straight out of the kitchen, for her apron-strings are
hanging to the ground behind her anyhow. And all of a sudden her
red-striped skirt strikes me as so familiar, and as I pass behind her
she turns round without a word, and looks at me wild-eyed.
"Dora, is that you?"
Then she bows her face, streaming with tears, and says dully to herself:
"They have shot my husband dead."
"But, Dora," I shout to her anxiously--for it suddenly flashes upon me
that she is ill--"why, here I am! Don't you know me any more?"
But she shakes her head, and turns away from me comfortless, and passes
me by like a stranger.
"Dora!" I shout aloud, "Dora!" and stretch out my arms toward the
vanishing figure. A sob chokes my throat....
Then I start, and am sitting up in bed, resting on my elbow. Through the
window sounds the long-drawn reveille. Dawn is peeping through the
panes.
So I did nod off after all, and I did not have a pleasant dream. But I
have no time to be grumpy over it, for footsteps are ringing along the
corridor. Hobnail boots clatter across the floor. The door is flung
open.
"Turn out!" a cheery voice shouts in.
It is the sergeant on duty. By this time he has already reached the next
door. And sleepy figures are rising from their cots, yawning and
stretching their arms; are turning out and slipping, shivering with
cold, into their clothes. Yawning, they stretch their limbs and flap
their arms until the second more welcome morning signal, "Breakfast
rations," lends life and animation to fasting men.